Transcript It wasn`t me, my robot did it! Conrad McDonnell AI

It wasn’t me, my robot did it!
Overview
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The problem of liability
Realistic risk areas
Possible solutions
Legal personality
Conrad McDonnell
It wasn’t me, my robot did it!
Conrad McDonnell
Liability in legal systems
• Harm + intention / foreseeability + causation
• Crime – Civil tort – Crime + Tort
• Examples
A puts poison in B’s soup
A puts poison in a bowl of soup in the kitchen
A stores poison near to the soup bowls
C manufactures poison, sells some to A
It wasn’t me, my robot did it!
Conrad McDonnell
Liability – the problem with AI
• Complex or unpredictable systems
• Autonomous
– dependent on input data or experience, or
– so complex that humans cannot predict
• Is the behaviour foreseeable?
• Is there a new cause?
It wasn’t me, my robot did it!
Conrad McDonnell
AI – a practical definition
“A computer system whose function is
substantially determined by its experience
rather than by its original programming.”
Experience can include: training and feedback, user
input, data mining, or the system’s own prior analysis
of a problem.
It wasn’t me, my robot did it!
Conrad McDonnell
Vicarious liability
• Liability for objects I am controlling
Liable if my car runs into someone
Liable if my horse kicks someone
Liable if my dog bites someone
• Liability for the acts of another person
Liability for the act of my child
Liability for the act of my employee
It wasn’t me, my robot did it!
Who is liable?
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The system developer?
The owner?
The operator?
The user?
Conrad McDonnell
It wasn’t me, my robot did it!
Conrad McDonnell
6 stages of deployment
1. Idea
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2. Hardware design
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6. Public release
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5. Limited trial
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3. Software design  4. System training
It wasn’t me, my robot did it!
Conrad McDonnell
The example of Tay
• Chatbot – emulating teenager
• Responds to text and photo Tweets
• Response is based on
– Public data
– Editorial content from ‘comedians’
– Personalized response based on user language
• The problem: responds to everything
It wasn’t me, my robot did it!
Conrad McDonnell
Controls on corporate behaviour
• Criminal law
• Regulatory law
• Civil law
– Product liability (tort)
– Contract law – but only with contracting party
• Public opinion
• Private reputation + customer experience
It wasn’t me, my robot did it!
Conrad McDonnell
AI does not care
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Narrow AI cannot ‘know right from wrong’
Law – morality – customary behaviour
Child education – home + school
Prisoner’s Dilemna
AI is:
– Goal driven
– Not personally responsible  no detriment
– Duplicatable (phoenix system)
It wasn’t me, my robot did it!
Conrad McDonnell
Classifying AIs
Narrow AI
General AI
Mobile
Sedentary
It wasn’t me, my robot did it!
Conrad McDonnell
System for discussion
“Limited general AI”
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Sedentary
General machine learning algorithms
Natural language processing
Internet connected, access to all data
Milestones:
• Tell fact from fiction
• Answer homework like a smart 12 year old
• Defeat any Captcha
It wasn’t me, my robot did it!
Conrad McDonnell
Realistic risk areas
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Hacking and cyber crime
Intellectual property theft
Financial crime
Distortion of search results / news articles
Misrepresentation (libel or slander)
Racism, hate speech, pornography and
other inappropriate communication
It wasn’t me, my robot did it!
Conrad McDonnell
Societal risk
• AI in control of essential utilities could start
to function erratically
• Other unpredicted behaviour
• Accidental harm vs. intended harm
• AI access to unrelated but crucial systems
through hacking or accidental interaction
It wasn’t me, my robot did it!
Conrad McDonnell
Regulation is no solution
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Paper by MATTHEW SCHERER 29 HARV. J L & TECH
Problems:
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Stifling effect
How can a regulator identify the risk?
Cross-border / jurisdictional issues
The real risks are in deployment
It wasn’t me, my robot did it!
Conrad McDonnell
Legal personality
• A legal person has its own rights and
responsibilities
– can own property
– direct legal liability
• Corporate entities have legal personality
It wasn’t me, my robot did it!
Conrad McDonnell
AI-controlled company
Directors
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AI
Corporation
Rest of world
It wasn’t me, my robot did it!
Conrad McDonnell
Self-owned AI
AI
Corporation
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Corporation
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AI
Rest of world
It wasn’t me, my robot did it!
[email protected]
Conrad McDonnell